amaranth_dru:Folks please note: This is CNN not FOX news reporting this garbage. A good sign that major media outlets care less about truth in journalism and more about inciting flame wars. In other words, ALL news channels are troll-bait and untrustworthy.

Broadcast news is a blight on journalism.

OT: Another reason to love David Jaffe. This is almost as good as the time he called out Olivia Munn for being an utter moron.

Wait, link! I need to see the Olivia Munn insults!

Best video I could find. Unfortunate quality >.>

EDIT: IIRC he basically called her an idiot after the interview, though you can tell that's what he was thinking in the video

I played and replayed the interview and compared the points made in the main article with Burnett's wording - I really don't think she was preaching "gaming makes killers" as absolute fact. At all. When she said "...it's accepted as fact..." she prefixed it with "A lot of people say...". That and her reading the senator's statement on the Norway shooter (as we covered on this site as true that he claimed gaming was his training tool - why he said could be a separate argument) leads me to believe she was reiterating other points being made about the topic and touching on a perception that is still prevalent in our society, after which she asked her guest if he can confirm it or not. Admittedly the only reason I can think for her to press on with the GTA questioning, aside from demonizing, was because the network needed to fill time and they had a clip they could show, which I agree would be good argument against 24-hour news cycle broadcasting (filling time with useless crap) but I didn't see that as trying to bully Dr. Pollack into conceding to that view. Also, did anyone find his quip at the end (6:06) about GTA or other games possibly causing "domestic violence" or making people "stand back" from fights weird?

I've given up on 24 hours new networks. They're just entertainment news for people that need their entrenched positions on any subject reenforced by morons like this. They wear the mantle of old school newsmen while tearing down everything those guys created for the sake of add revenue. To me CNN MSNBC and Fox News has as much credibility as the celebrity tabloid papers that they claim to be better then.

I gotta be honest, I'm kinda glad Jaffe is hurling the shit right back. Plenty of people have tried to be respectful and mature when discussing video games to journalists and they are either ignored or completely steamrolled. Sad to say, being "professional" hasn't gotten us very far. Putting the journalists on the spot like this is a welcome change in my eyes. And kudos to the doctor she was interviewing for sticking with his guns rather than being swayed by her constant questions and badgering.

Here I figured that this wouldn't happen again, since this kind of persecution happened years ago and was very wholesomely shot down.

Also, since when does grand-theft-auto have a points system? I only noticed a money counter, but not points. Though to be fair, I never played the games a whole lot. Saints Row 3 won me over.

But yeah, silliness how this kind of thing keeps happening, and now isn't even limited to Faux News. It's not even laughable anymore, just stupid.

Sometimes I feel like the only way this world will ever lose the worst of its habits is through a straight-up alien invasion by someone who would completely table us, but wouldn't genocide us.. Like the Tau Empire or..... well anyone else know of an alien empire that would not genocide humanity but instead integrate us?

CNN has since 9/11 just stayed 1 year behind Fox News in it's style. It's comical how one of the worlds most respected news channel has now become the laughing stock of international journalism. Al-Jazeera is more nuanced than CNN (I shit you not).

You're right about Al-jazeera. Not too long ago I read a piece at their site asking why the only philosophers and intellectuals the field cared about are european born, or western in thought, ignoring the burgeuoning texts and thinking coming from the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa. It was an excellent, nunaced piece, and very thought inspiring, with extremely articulate writing and carefully worded arguments. Then we have this on CNN. *sigh*

amaranth_dru:Folks please note: This is CNN not FOX news reporting this garbage. A good sign that major media outlets care less about truth in journalism and more about inciting flame wars. In other words, ALL news channels are troll-bait and untrustworthy.

I really feel bad for you Americans that you have to live with this kind of journalism. How does anyone in your country get any facts?

Thank god that in England we have the BBC. Hell, televised media journalists are not even allowed to state their political opinions in our country. Plus while we do have biased media it is all confined to newspapers, so we can just ignore all of them.

While i mainly agree with you the bbc are just as guilty as other news outlets when it comes to their reporting of school shootings.

Regarding jaffe, Good work that man!

Well, the BBC has to thread a bit careful in the USA, because if they try to bring real journalism there, they would probably indirectly, or just directly also have to report that the US' journalistic standards are a cesspit. Imagine the outrage if a BBC journalist actually said something that in essence boiled down to "maybe now these dumb-ass americans can understand that automatic firearms do not belong in the hands of civilians?" Followed of course up with "Oh dear, they're blaming it on games again, how stupid are they?".

It's politics. Britain saw how France became the enemy just for saying "What the fuck kinda dumb idea is it to invade Iraq?", and realized that america is crazy. You don't ever let a crazy person know you think they're crazy, unless you want to die.

vid87:I played and replayed the interview and compared the points made in the main article with Burnett's wording - I really don't think she was preaching "gaming makes killers" as absolute fact. At all. When she said "...it's accepted as fact..." she prefixed it with "A lot of people say...". That and her reading the senator's statement on the Norway shooter (as we covered on this site as true that he claimed gaming was his training tool - why he said could be a separate argument) leads me to believe she was reiterating other points being made about the topic and touching on a perception that is still prevalent in our society, after which she asked her guest if he can confirm it or not. Admittedly the only reason I can think for her to press on with the GTA questioning, aside from demonizing, was because the network needed to fill time and they had a clip they could show, which I agree would be good argument against 24-hour news cycle broadcasting (filling time with useless crap) but I didn't see that as trying to bully Dr. Pollack into conceding to that view. Also, did anyone find his quip at the end (6:06) about GTA or other games possibly causing "domestic violence" or making people "stand back" from fights weird?

The fact that the article misrepresented her, especially when it came to the "training simulator" statement, deeply saddens me. I would not doubt that she has some sort of anti-video game bias, or is simply out of touch, but calling out a reporter for misrepresentation and then doing it oneself is not good practice.

albino boo:Congratulations Mr Jaffe you win PR screw up of the week. If the video gaming industry wants to counter the current issues it needs to get better organised and stop playing to the gallery of the hardcore gamers. The people you need to convince that games aren't a risk are just going to see some hipster launching a personal attack via twitter on someone they trust. If you want change people minds, you need to put your best suit and respectfully and forensically dissect the oppositions argument. Angry rants didn't work for the Tea Party and it isn't going to work for the gaming industry. The industry needs to sound like serious responsible people not some hipster ranting about capitalism.

No actually not.

She is a fucking piece of crap reporter.

He made no threats of violence, he made no sexist remarks, he made no insults other than calling her ability to do her job properly into question and her basic intelligence.

You don't convince someone that has already made up their mind about you that you aren't a raving murderer by dressing up, pulling punches and acting sweet. All that does is allow them to just pound on you. Kind of like they have been constantly doing.

Even with an expert literally contradicting her on air she STILL tried to twist his arm to say it. He was wearing a nice suit wasn't he? Guess the suit did very little to help him out.

Misrepresentation, quote mining, Fox News reporting and lies are not countered with soft spoken protest, they can only be countered by a hard bitchslap of logic and facts.

Jaffe wins for just saying what should be said more often. There is no proof and if you actually read the studies you quote you would see that they actually include a list of things that increased violent tendencies more than videogames.

One of those being... Access to firearms. Want to know what happens when I start talking as if it has been scientifically proven that gunownership leads to murderous behaviour? I would get pulled of the air. Because gunowners (but mostly manufacturers) are not a silent party, they speak up, quite a bit (not to mention the political bribes the manufacturers give).

God dammit it makes me feel good to know that somebody else thinks these fucking morons shouldn't even be allowed a say. If they're gonna go around lobbing wild accusations AND THEN have the fucking nerve not to even listen to anyone else's arguments, then they flat out should never be allowed a position that allows them to broadcast such views as the truth.

I say good on David Jaffe. Some are going to see this as not taking the higher ground, an infantile way of dealing with things, but if these people are going to keep acting like kids saying their opinion is right simply "because" then damn right we'll treat them like kids.

StriderShinryu:Dr. Pollack deserves some major props here. Sure, he's not necessarily a fan of games and didn't know enough about GTA to call her on her BS line about "points" stolen from Jack Tnompson (he also didn't mention the rather important fact that games like GTA and CoD aren't meant for kids anyway), but he still stood by the facts when pressed. And, after all that, to have his comments labelled as provocative? Sheesh...

Exactly what I was thinking. She doesn't even know what she's talking about. There are no points in GTA. What the hell?

And with all due respect to the right to bear arms, the US has a unique problem with gun violence compared to every other country. Even scaling it, the gun crimes in the US is way higher than Canada and the same sets and subsets of video games show up here. But with that said, any one of us who wants to simply blame gun laws, protect video games and claim innocence are no better than the NRA supporters blaming video games. The issues regarding shooting are way more complicated than that for any given instance.

Ironically, I find that a good round of virtual violence is a great stress reliever. Gotta go kill some zombies in Red Dead.

That video made me think, hold on a bloody second, before they even insulted the gaming industry they're concerned about the popularity and revenue earned from a clearly over-powered semi-machine gun whom no ordinary person should even need never mind should have.

I'm sorry, but that already invalidates any argument that they could make.

This whole agenda switching back and forth between guns and violent video games is obnoxious. Both ignore the context of violence as a social issue. My favorite bit is where she finds concepts behind GTA disgusting and insulting, ergo (latin) it will cause people to become violent and shoot up schools. It's funny how people need to justify there feelings by making it seem like the worst thing in the world.

StriderShinryu:Dr. Pollack deserves some major props here. Sure, he's not necessarily a fan of games and didn't know enough about GTA to call her on her BS line about "points" stolen from Jack Tnompson (he also didn't mention the rather important fact that games like GTA and CoD aren't meant for kids anyway), but he still stood by the facts when pressed. And, after all that, to have his comments labelled as provocative? Sheesh...

so damn true I saw this interview line on CNN earlier today

you don't "score points" for killing a hooker in GTA. Their are no points in GTA(expect for multi-player modes where you kill other people)

Waraddict:That video made me think, hold on a bloody second, before they even insulted the gaming industry they're concerned about the popularity and revenue earned from a clearly over-powered semi-machine gun whom no ordinary person should even need never mind should have.

I'm sorry, but that already invalidates any argument that they could make.

I think it's funny that there was need to show both segments in that clip when clearly only the end segment is relevant. Jobs, company growth, and companies abilities to be profitable affect people beyond the ones shot by crazies. You do realize that more than 99.9 % of all people who own that firearm didn't shoot anyone in a school and never will, right? I'm not interested in fighting over this, I'm just pointing out that constantly switching the blame off of the real issue is not a way to solve a problem. It's like having a broken back and taking pain killers to deal with it, it just doesn't make sense. Also, not making an argument in favor of guns (though I have no issue what so ever in those guns being available to law abiding citizens), just making an argument favor of rationality.

As an aside, I like how the media doesn't take responsibility for their part. They romanticize these broken human beings and then when it happens again and again they shift the blame off of themselves.

Why was the anchor speaking diminutively to Dr. Pollack? This is a well respected professional, who has earnt his status in society and utterly disgraceful behavior upon her part. Right from the very beginning and her refusal to address him by title. This is well below journalistic standards. He would've been well within reason to just smile, stand up and walk out right after the introduction after that thinly concealed insult. I hold him in even greater esteem for simply choosing not to and perservering through such a merry-go-round of an "interview".

I'm sure CNN looks at FOX and MSNBC and thinks, "What can we do to get the rating they do?" Then the board of directors thinks for a bit. Then one jumps out of their chair and yells, "BE AS AWFUL AND SHITTY AS THEY ARE!" The board then applauds him and I die a little more inside.

But this is nothing really new, remember William Randolph "You get me a story and I'll get you a war!" Hearst.

amaranth_dru:Folks please note: This is CNN not FOX news reporting this garbage. A good sign that major media outlets care less about truth in journalism and more about inciting flame wars. In other words, ALL news channels are troll-bait and untrustworthy.

CNN's been pretty much a tabloid for years. The only difference between them and FOX is that FOX pushes a specific party agenda, while CNN pushes a "whatever we think will get us ratings" agenda, which honestly is kindof more pathetic. They've got a few decent journalists and a few decent shows, but their main news hours are a joke.

amaranth_dru:Folks please note: This is CNN not FOX news reporting this garbage. A good sign that major media outlets care less about truth in journalism and more about inciting flame wars. In other words, ALL news channels are troll-bait and untrustworthy.

I really feel bad for you Americans that you have to live with this kind of journalism. How does anyone in your country get any facts?

Thank god that in England we have the BBC. Hell, televised media journalists are not even allowed to state their political opinions in our country. Plus while we do have biased media it is all confined to newspapers, so we can just ignore all of them.

Thankfully, we have the BBC here too. Or, at least some cable providers have it. Also, I think al-Jazeera might be coming over too, since they recently bought a channel here.

People have been shooting each other in mass for many, many generations longer than video games have existed. Why are people too stupid to notice this? Are we really going to blame World War II on Call of Duty?

EDIT: IIRC he basically called her an idiot after the interview, though you can tell that's what he was thinking in the video

Holy shit. Is this the kind of moron that passes as a journalist in this industry now? It's like the folks in charge of E3 will just put any pair of tits on the screen and don't give a fuck if they know what a video game is much less what 2x2 is. Didn't they have iJustine on as a major event host recently as well? I am so fucking mad.

Thankfully, we have the BBC here too. Or, at least some cable providers have it. Also, I think al-Jazeera might be coming over too, since they recently bought a channel here.

And already one of the largest cable providers has announced they're going to drop Current TV, the channel they bought.

amaranth_dru:Folks please note: This is CNN not FOX news reporting this garbage. A good sign that major media outlets care less about truth in journalism and more about inciting flame wars. In other words, ALL news channels are troll-bait and untrustworthy.

Half-right. It's not about truth, it's about making money. Ratings equal money, and sensationalism equals ratings. This isn't about a flame war so much as riding the game wave. Emotions are high and this is the easy way to use it to their advantage.

Of course, Jaffe being an excitable tool probably makes it even easier.

CardinalPiggles:Of course, these don't cause people to want to murder a whole bunch of innocents, but it can't hurt to have a little restriction on these things.

That's the thing: there are restrictions. As many restrictions as there are on rated R movies--in fact they were developed in pretty much the same way and for the same reasons. Like with films, the video game the rating system was devised by a non-government entity (to regulate themselves before the government stepped in to regulate them), and it's upheld more or less by tacit agreement with sellers. It's as easy for a kid to get a rated M game as it is for them to get a rated R movie.

But of course kids still can easily see rated R movies or play rated M games, they just need access through someone older. Some parents don't see a problem in their kids being exposed to these things, or don't care enough to go out of their way to prevent exposure. So what do you want to do about it? Have fingerprint scanners to play games? Monitor what people do and when to make sure their kids aren't playing the games? If the kid is getting access through someone older, there isn't a lot you can do about it that isn't extremely invasive or bound to be ineffective.

So what exactly are these witch-hunting journalists/politicians hoping to accomplish?(aside from drawing attention to themselves..) Violent videogames cannot be legally sold to minors. The issue has already been addressed (regardless of any scientific conclusions) with the ESRB rating system.

Any attempt to censor media intended for adults would be a clear violation of freedom of expression/speech etc. The legal systems of most Western nations would never approve of such censorship. If a parent allows their children to play violent video games in the privacy of their homes, the state has little to no means to intervene. It's all a non-issue IMO, these people should just be ignored as they really are not worth the elevated blood pressure.

Eh... While I applaud him for not being afraid to speak his mind, I really don't think this is going to help prove our point. When a news report like this comes out, I too am pretty ticked off; but spazzing out on Twitter doesn't put us in a good light either.

I don't think people like her, who are ignorant on the subject get to have an opinion. She should stick to interviewing and mediating between two people who have done their research and have formed a scientific opinion based on a study on the matter instead of squawking incorrect information, bias bogus facts & ignoring their guests input.

She displayed absolute ignorance on the matter but spoke it like there was some form of basis for her claims. Problem is there isn't, it's been shown over and over games don't directly cause this stuff. No one after playing GTA will go on a rampage. These ignorant statements just bother me because it shows she clearly hasn't done an ounce of research and doesn't care to, she just wants to cluck out BS and get to the next story which is probably more of the same.

I'd hope she interviews Jaffe but, even then she would still have incorrect information and continue to claim it over the interview.